


Careful of the Sun

by quartetship



Category: Shingeki no Kyojin | Attack on Titan
Genre: Heartbreak, M/M, Originally Posted on Tumblr
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-05-19
Updated: 2016-05-19
Packaged: 2018-06-09 08:44:58
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,041
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6899095
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/quartetship/pseuds/quartetship
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Careful of the sun, kid.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Careful of the Sun

**Author's Note:**

> So a while back, an anon messaged me asking what my take on Marco as the heartbreaker in an angsty JeanMarco dynamic would look like, and for some reason, my brain drifted into new au territory.
> 
> The back story for this one is that it occurs in the Appalachian mountains sometime in the nineties (?) and I could feasibly write more if you guys love to die or whatever.
> 
> BUT ANYWAY, enjoy the angst, friends. Heartbreaker Marco, by request. :’)  
> (Originally posted on tumblr last year.)
> 
> \--

It’s funny, how blind the sun can make you. People tell you not to look at it head-on, but even when you're squinting ‘til your eyes nearly cross, there are some things the light makes worse. But it's hard to tell, when you’re looking everywhere other than right where you should be.

My name’s Jean, and I'm here to tell you firsthand that the sun can burn, and sugar can go bitter if you let it get too hot. And that's exactly what I did. His name was Marco Bodt.

I can usually see trouble coming, and I'm pretty damned good at steppin' out of the way to keep it from hitting me. Comes from growin' up in the hills; you just don't trust people. Especially when it comes to the people you let get close to you. But Marco was an exception. I didn't see it coming, with him; I couldn't see _anything_ through the clouds he had my head in.

He was sweet. A good boy. That was something new, and it should've been my first sign to run. But who runs from sugar and sunlight? Who sees the embodiment of happiness and thinks to turn on their heels? Nobody sensible, that's for sure. At least that's what I keep tellin' myself.

Everything was perfect, for a little while. I'd never met anyone like Marco; he made me feel like the center of his universe, like nothing was more important than what I thought. He knew I liked guys, and unlike everyone else, he never made a big deal about it. We were best friends. I could tell him anything, and when I told him that I was starting to think of him as more than that, he gave me that million dollar, sugar-dipped smile, and let me take his hand. Then he kissed me, and I was almost sure I could see the stars, despite the way the outline of the mountains all but blocked our view, out there on my roof.

It was all downhill from there.

I've been in love before. But I never understood the phrase 'falling for someone', until I met Marco. It was tripping, tumbling, losing my footing and my grip on everything around me as I woke up day after day from dreams of his laugh, his eyes, the way his hand felt in mine. When I told him I loved him, he said it back without a pause, and I thought that was it. The riddle of life was solved, and the answer was Marco Bodt.

But I didn't check my math.

Turns out Marco loved a lot of people. Maybe not the same way he loved me, but I definitely didn't have any kind of claim on his attention. Pretty soon I realized that someone like him could never find everything he needed in someone like me. Not because I wasn't enough, but because he was just too damned much.

Some birds you can't cage, and I was a fool for tryin'.

So he got away from me.

It started slow. When I'd ask him what was wrong, he'd shake his head and give me that smile like he had no clue what I was talking about, and it was too pretty for me to think clear enough to see past it. I just let things roll along, and before I knew it, his hand was slipping out of mine. He still told me he loved me, but his eyes always seemed to be somewhere else, lookin' right through me, like the person his words were meant for was on the horizon.

When he left, it was like the last few crackles of a dying flame, the end of a sparkler burning down to nothing but a smoldering skeleton of what it had been. There was no ceremony, no grand goodbye. I just woke up one morning and felt the coolness of the bed, empty beside me where he had risen hours before to disappear.

I looked the house over for a note, but there wasn't one. I waited by the phone, waited for a letter, waited for _anything_ that would tell me he was bringing the sunshine back to my life, or at least explain why he'd taken it. Nothing ever came. Marco was gone, and my heart had gone with him.

I never loved again, after him.

I couldn't tell anyone, of course. Not around here. Folks in these parts would've never let me live it down, goin' around heartbroken, especially over another man. So I kept it to myself, and tried to smile when my mama asked why I kept coming home for Christmas without somebody on my arm. I think she knew, really. I think everybody did. Everybody, except Marco.

He got on with his life. A few years after things ended with me, I saw him back in town, another guy in the passenger's seat of his car. He smiled at me and waved, like it wasn't a gut-twisting stab, being in the same parking lot. For him, I guess it wasn't. But for me, I guess it always will be.

He's got somebody new, now. Way I see it, nobody will ever tie him down for long. No matter how much anybody loves the sun, it's still too damned big to belong to any one person, and Marco is no different. He just keeps shining, casting his light on a different face every few months, and I keep sitting here, watching it happen, and missing the warmth his light once cast on mine.

I guess that's the good part, if there is one. He still smiles when he sees me, just before he turns back to smile at whoever he's with, this time. And for a second, my heart leaps in my chest, and I remember the way it felt when that person was me. I remember the taste of his lips and the warmth of his touch and everything gets a little sweeter, a little brighter.

And then it's gone.

But I guess most good things don't last, and anybody that tells you different might be the next person in line to learn.

Careful of the sun, kid. Not all burns will heal.


End file.
